Sample developer.* Email Newsletter

Editor's Note: the following is a sample developer.* email newsletter. The primary purpose of the newsletter is to keep people informed about recent publications and happenings on the developer.* web site. We have many regular readers who don't necessarily check out the site every day, but like to hear from us every month or two so they can catch up.

Hello, and thank you for your interest in developer.*. Welcome to all of the new subscribers.

I know I should probably first tell you about the three cool and diverse articles we've published since the last newsletter, but I can't restrain myself from launching first into book news. That's right, the first developer.* Books title, called Software Conflict 2.0, by Robert L. Glass is 100% done and shipping to happy readers.

We hope you'll order a copy. We were so sure that other people would be interested in this great book that we spent almost a year working on it and invested some cash as well. We hope you'll help us prove that we weren't crazy. :-)

Seriously, though, it was really an honor for Gayle and I to work with Bob Glass on this book. He's as nice a guy as you would imagine from reading his essays and books. We're also grateful to Pragmatic Programmer Andy Hunt for writing a new Guest Foreword for Software Conflict 2.0.

Speaking of Andy Hunt (Holy Tie-In, Batman!), Mr. Hunt is also co-author of our newest article, one I think you'll like a lot:

If you've ever been curious about these popular authors, this is a good place to get a clear idea of where they are coming from. What I really like about the Pragmatic Programmers, and about this essay (which is based on a talk the authors gave in Denmark) is the way they balance a historical perspective and, well, pragmatism, while at the same time embracing new ways of doing things, all the while displaying the enthusiasm of a newbie--like Bob Glass, they are die-hard practitioners.

While I'm throwing around all these big names, here's another one: we also just published this book excerpt from Gerald M. Weinberg's latest from Dorset House books:

This is not exactly software development related (though I think the ideas about creativity Jerry writes about in this book are relevant in many ways to software people), but I asked Jerry if we could publish this excerpt anyway. We appreciate Jerry and Dorset House for letting us publish it. I'm betting on the fact that in the developer.* audience there are a few writers, aspiring writers, or people curious about writing. Jerry does a good job in this book of coming at the topic from a very fresh perspective, so check it out even if you're not sure it's for you.

Finally, last but not least, we have a very nice article about .NET exception handling, including a discussion of error handling principles, example code, an example project, and a reusable VB.NET DLL for centralized exception handling. Special thanks to Edward for his work on this:

Edward's .NET library for launching MS-DOS processes continues to be a popular download.

As always, stop by the blogs and discussion area to see what you've been missing. There have been some great posts and comment threads since the last update. Donna Davis's third installment in the What the CIO Wants You To Know series generated some great discussion:

Be sure to also check out Edward Nilges's recent post that spins off from Donna's, and wrote yet another spinoff post to my blog. We also had an inagural post by a new blogger, who also will have an article coming out in developer.* soon, Mario Van Damme of Belgium. His post is called "The Dark Side of Assertions":

Then that means we don't know about a way to order Software Conflict 2.0 in your country. We want to fix that. We would like to have links to as many booksellers as possible, all around the world. Can you do us a favor? Can you go to your favorite online bookseller in your country and search for "Software Conflict 2.0" and see if our book comes up? Can you send us a link to the site, whether or not the book comes up? We're still learning about the international book market, and we are looking for ways to distribute the book as widely as possible. If you live in a place where it is difficult or expensive to order a copy, please get in touch and we'll find a way.